The Project co-host Peter Helliar defends TV show

The Project co-host Peter Helliar says is he more focused on the show’s “passionate” audience rather than “external noise”.

Peter Helliar has launched a passionate defence of The Project, saying the news panel show has the most engaged audience in television.

A long-time co-host of the Ten program, Helliar said he doesn’t take notice of external noise surrounding ratings.

“I do get the sense that there have been various people coming for it a bit, I have seen a couple of things, we live in a very political world and people can be easily offended, so I know that there are people coming for the show,’’ Helliar said.

“But on the flip side what I do know and I generally focus on, is we have an audience that absolutely love the show and are passionate about the show.

“We have the most engaged audience in television. If we run a story about some people doing it tough and trying to raise some money, by the time we get off air there’s $100,000 raised. That doesn’t happen if people aren’t invested in the show. It’s a credit to the people who work behind the scenes.

Peter Helliar with his Project co-hosts Waleed Aly and Carrie Bickmore.

“We have international guests on and they can’t believe the schizophrenic nature of it and there’s nothing quite like it. We should be proud and it’s an Australian concept, Craig Campbell came up with it, and I’m really proud to be part of it.”

Helliar said it was a joy to have Carrie Bickmore back at the desk after her European break, while it was revealed this week that Lisa Wilkinson is spending time in the US.

“She’s the captain of our team,’’ Helliar said of Bickmore.

“She’s the spiritual leader as we would say. The Glenn Archer of The Project. It’s great, but Chrissie Swan and Georgie Tunny did a spectacular job covering for her. It went by a lot quicker than we thought but certainly to have Carrie back, she is irreplaceable. She is somewhat of a unicorn.”

He added: “It’s such a beast of a show, once the show is done we just move onto the next show and try to get that to air.

“The idea of me looking at the ratings and worrying about what happened last night, sometimes people will say that was great or this wasn’t working, I hear those conversations, but as far as the external noise I don’t hear as much of it.”

The popular comedian is hosting a new Family Feud podcast which launched last week.

It pits two big name celebrities against each other with all the nostalgia of the classic game show.

“Each episode is packed with drama, suspense and laughs and follows a similar format to the TV program,’’ Helliar said.

“I had the good fortune of doing the show as a celebrity edition with the The Project up against Neighbours and to this day ours was the greatest ever losing margin. The reason we lost is that Waleed overthinks things and that comes as a shock to nobody.”

Family Feud The Podcast is available now via the free iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Originally published as The Project co-host Peter Helliar defends TV show